The research component of this Center will employ novel intact lower urinary tract (LUT) explants, video microscopy, and optical mapping techniques to provide the urological community, and investigators outside the realm of this discipline, with the tools for real---time systems level analysis of UT smooth muscle activity, which is currently lacking. Video microscopy and optical mapping analyses of intact ureter and bladder explants will be used to document the contractile and electrical excitation patterns within intact tissues and within specified regions of these urinary tract segments in wild type and mutant murine models of hydronephrosis and overactive bladder syndrome. Data will be processed and analysed using custom written software that incorporates advanced mathematical algorithms that enable the differentiation of membrane voltage signals and experimental noise, as well as the representation of membrane depolarization data as spatial temporal excitation maps and action potential contours. High---resolution movies and time lapse images of representative real---time video microscopy will be performed to correlate electrical and contractile activity. Thus, our core will provide a comprehensive analysis of large scale LUT motility patterns and pave the way for the generation of novel diagnostics and drugs to alleviate UT motility defects such as in---born functional UT obstructions and overactive active bladder syndrome.